Hard Cell

Cong Qihua, a former farmer who migrated from impoverished Anhui province to seek a better life selling vegetables from a stall in the outskirts of Shanghai, is, in his own way, upwardly mobile. Back in Anhui, he made about $120 a year. Today he and his wife make that much in a month. Still, the pace of his days is not so different. He has no reason to dash about, like many of his fellow Shanghainese, with a cell phone pressed to his ear. "Why would I need one of those things?" asks Cong, who is in his 50s. "It's hard...